Dinner Party
by Anybodysdaughter
Summary: Ziva's neighbor invites her over to dinner and she doesn't know what to do.
1. Chapter 1

Ziva was walking upstairs to her apartment at the end of a boring paperwork Thursday, thinking about what she was going to make for dinner. When she reached the flight just below hers, she practically ran into her neighbor, Clarissa.

"Hey Ziva! I was just looking for you, would you like to come over for dinner? I know it's really last minute…" Clarissa trailed off and twiddled with her hands nervously. She was a single mother with a five year old boy named Joe. She and Ziva never really got past small talk in the hallway, and Ziva was surprised by the invitation.

"That would be nice. Um, when would you like me to come over?"

"The food will be ready in about an hour, so whenever you're ready you can just come on down."

"Okay then I'll see you soon." Ziva walked up the rest of the stairs, her mind churning. She'd never been invited to someone's house for casual dinner before, not in D.C. What should she wear? And what should she bring? In Israel it was customary to bring a small gift, and she didn't have time to go buy something! She decided that the best person to ask in this situation was Abby.

Brrring. Brrrring.

"C'mon Abby, pick up the phone!"

"You've reached Abby Sciuto, I'm super busy right now, so I'll call you back later!"

No Abby then. Ziva went through the rest of her options: Ducky, Gibbs, McGee, Tony, Palmer. Ducky was too old fashioned, he might have her dressed for a fancy dinner party bringing a pie, and Gibbs would just show up in flannel and jeans, carrying alcohol. McGee rarely involved himself in social situations, so she couldn't call him. Tony would know what to do, she concluded.

Brrring. Brrring. "DiNozzo."

"Tony."

"Hey Ziva, what's up?"

"I have a, um, question for you."

"Okay, shoot." She swore he tried to sound like Gibbs on purpose sometimes.

"I have a dinner invitation, and I don't know what to wear or bring, what do Americans bring when invited to dinner?"

"Ziva, you surprise me, I thought you'd know exactly how to dress to please a man on a date." His words were light, but she could tell he was upset by the news. "Just wear that little piece you were wearing undercover with the dumpster guy. You know, the orange one."

"My dress is coral, Tony, and it is not a date. My neighbor asked me to come over to dinner tonight."

"Oh. Well in that case, wear whatever you'd like, maybe something nice but not too dressy, like one of your nice flowy shirts and a pair of pants. As for what to bring, call her up and ask her."

"Thanks Tony. I appreciate it." Ziva looked around for Clarissa's phone number, then dialed. Clarissa answered, and told Ziva she didn't have to bring anything. When Ziva questioned further, Clarissa insisted again that she shouldn't bring anything, just herself and some food containers for leftovers.

Confused, Ziva hung up with Clarissa, and changed into the clothes Tony had suggested. She decided to call him again, to see what she should do now. She only had about 20 minutes until dinner, but it was still enough time to whip together some sort of food.

"Tony, what do I do?" she asked before he could greet her. "I'm supposed to not bring anything. Do I just not bring anything? That doesn't seem right to me."

Tony laughed in response. "She was just trying to be polite, Ziva. Bring a snack or some dessert, it'll be fine."

"Oh. I can do that. Thanks Tony." Ziva was about to hang up when she heard Tony's voice from the receiver, "And Ziva. Good luck over there. I know you'll do great."

She smiled to herself as she cut some veggies and arranged them around red pepper hummus on a plate. Within a couple of minutes she was ready to go. Holding her dish, she looked herself over quickly through her full-length mirror and was pleased with the result. She felt comfortable, but with her hair curling around her shoulders, she looked nice. And she had some food to bring. She stepped out of her apartment and walked over to Clarissa's apartment.

When Clarissa opened the door, it was anything but what Ziva expected from the apartment. It was set up in much the same way as hers was, but it gave a completely different effect. One thing caught her attention more than everything else. There were little frills and doilies on every available surface.


	2. Chapter 2

The frills almost made Ziva want to leave the apartment the moment she walked in. She could only imagine what the little boy who lived there felt every day. Clarissa offered her a seat in the kitchen, and they both nibbled on the hummus and vegetables Ziva had brought.

"So, um, is anyone else coming over?" Ziva asked, uncertain what to talk about. If only she'd asked Tony about conversation and small talk. He was so good in those situations.

"No, it's just the three of us," Clarissa said brightly, gesturing to little Joe standing in the corner of the kitchen, staring silently at Ziva. "Joe, why don't you tell Ziva how old you are while I finish up dinner?"

"I'm five," Joe stated, moving a little closer to Ziva.

"Wow, that's…really cool," Ziva returned, unsure of what to say.

"And what grade are you in?" prompted Clarissa.

"I'm in Kindergarten, and I did coloring today! Wanna see?" Ziva nodded, and he ran and got a piece of paper with an outline of a cat on it. The cat was colored yellow and blue and green and most of the crayon lines were outside the cat, but Ziva praised it anyway.

"It's very nice, Joe. What else do you do in Kindergarten?"

"We have snacks and read books and last week we went on a field trip to the zoo!"

"That sounds like fun. I have not been to the zoo in a long time."

"We should all go sometime," Clarissa said from behind the counter where she was mixing some dressing into a bowl of salad.

"Why is your hair so curly?" Joe questioned, coming even closer and reaching up to touch Ziva's hair.

"Uhhhh…umm." Ziva looked helplessly at Clarissa. She'd never been good with kids; what was she supposed to say? Clarissa nodded encouragingly at Ziva, but what did that mean? She was just going to have to go for it and hope she'd said the right thing.

"Um well my mother had curly hair and she passed it down to me, and my sister Tali. Just like your mom passed down some of her traits to you."

"Oh. What are traits?"

"They're different parts of you, like the color of your eyes, and your height, and things like that."

"Alright guys, dinner's ready. C'mon Joe let's wash your hands first. Ziva you can sit at the head of the table if you'd like." Clarissa and Joe headed down the hall to the bathroom.

Ziva walked over to the dining room and sat down at the head of the table, then decided she had time to check her phone quickly. She had a text from Tony: _How's it going? J _

She smiled at her partner's text, and quickly typed back: _I think it is going well, we are just sitting down to dinner now. _

Clarissa and Joe came back from the bathroom, and they all sat down to eat. Clarissa had prepared a delicious dinner of chicken breast and cheesy potatoes, as well as salad and a pie for dessert. It was now that the adult conversation would commence.

"So, Ziva, what do you do for a living? I rarely see you unless it's either very early or very late."

"I work for NCIS, Naval Criminal Investigative Services. My team and I investigate into the murders of Navy personnel, Marines, and that sort of thing."

"What's murder?" Joe piped up, pieces of lettuce waving in midair on their way to his mouth.

"Murder is when a bad guy kills someone on purpose. I have to find and catch the bad guys." Ziva replied.

"Whoa that's really cool! How many bad guys didya catch?"

"Quite a few, Joe." Ziva smiled at the little boy's enthusiasm.

Clarissa was not so excited. In fact, she looked rather sick to her stomach as she tried to change the subject. "So what do you do in your free time?"

"Every morning I go for a run, and when it's nice out I will run to work sometimes. And occasionally in the evenings my team and I get together to watch a movie or have dinner or something."

"Do you talk about dead people then?"

"Joseph David! We will not be talking about dead people at the dinner table!" Joe hung his head, and Ziva's face turned a bright shade of pink. She should have realized that most people aren't accustomed to death and destruction here in the United States, and murder shouldn't be the topic of discussion during dinner.

"That was my fault Clarissa. I brought it up."

"No, no it's fine Ziva." Clarissa swallowed hard as if still trying to keep her food down.

"So, um, what do you do for a living Clarissa?" Ziva backtracked as fast as she could to a safer topic.

"I'm a registered nurse at the hospital nearby, and I work the day shifts when I can. It pays the bills, and I like helping people." Clarissa looked grateful for the change in subject. "I'm really good at making doilies, so sometimes I sell them to my coworkers or patients. It's a nicehobby." There was a little too much emphasis on the word 'nice,' Ziva thought.

"My mother used to knit a lot. I remember her knitting as us children did our schoolwork, in the early days. Then I joined—I was, um, very busy, and never saw her knitting after I left school. But she kept knitting, and was always giving me a pair of hand-knit gloves behind my father's back." Ziva smiled slightly at the memory of her mother, and saw that Clarissa was much more at ease with this conversation.

The rest of dinner and dessert were supported by memories of childhoods, and soon it was Joe's bedtime. Joe wasn't ready to go to bed. He wanted to talk about murder and dead people more, and show Ziva his trucks and do finger painting and a hundred other things, but Clarissa insisted it was bedtime.

"I'll be right back Ziva, I just need to put him to bed, why don't you grab the leftovers you want now?"

Ziva nodded and was turning back to the kitchen when Joe's voice choked out "Wait! I h-hafta say g-g'night to Z-Ziva, Mommy!"

Ziva looked at tear-stained Joe in his mother's arms, and told him, "Goodnight Joe. Maybe sometime I'll have time to come over and play with you and all those cool trucks in your room if your mom says it's okay, hmm?"

Clarissa agreed, and Joe was shipped off to bed while Ziva put some leftovers in a container and looked around Clarissa's apartment for some sort of conversation starter.


	3. Chapter 3

"Sorry about that. We don't get company often, so naturally he wanted to stay up and enjoy all the action."

"No, that's fine Clarissa." Ziva answered.

There was an awkward silence for a moment before Clarissa invited Ziva to sit down in the living room to talk more comfortably.

Ziva sat down somewhat precariously on a blue upright chair covered in doilies. Clarissa sat opposite, working on yet another doily, and Ziva decided it was the right time to start talking.

"I noticed you have a lot of ethnic cookbooks in your cupboards, do you use them often?"

"Not as much as I'd like to, honestly. All the recipes look delicious, but I'm so unfamiliar with a lot of the ingredients and cooking styles I never know if it'll turn out okay, or even barring that, if Joe will eat it. And I don't have the time to be cooking two meals every night for just the two of us, d'you know what I mean?"

"It must be really hard for you being a single mother and working and trying to still make home-cooked meals for Joe. I personally don't have a lot of time either, and I do not know everything about cooking all of the food in your cookbooks, but I would love to cook them with you sometime. And if we get really stumped, I have some contacts all around the world, and some of them owe me favors." Ziva laughed slightly, not sure what Clarissa's reaction would be.

"Contacts how? For what? For work?" Clarissa was puzzled and curious, but still Ziva tread slowly on the subject, thinking about what happened at dinner.

"Yes, for work, I have traveled quite a bit with the two agencies I've belonged to, and have made many acquaintances with 'people who know people,' as Tony would say."

"And who's Tony?" Clarissa cut in.

"Oh! Tony is my partner, and we work together on missions and things like that, watch each other's backs."

"That sounds nice. So Tony has a lot of contacts too?"

"Yes, but a very different set of contacts than I do. He worked for Baltimore PD for a while before moving over to NCIS, so a lot of his contacts are in Baltimore PD or from the surrounding area. My contacts are scattered across the rest of the world, mostly in or around Israel."

"Maybe you could bring him over to dinner sometime, would that be okay with you?" Clarissa asked rather suddenly. "Joe needs a male influence and role model, it would be nice of your friend Tony to stop by and talk boy talk every once in a while."

"Yes, um, I can bring him over sometime, let me know when." Something was bothering Ziva about Clarissa's request, but decided to let go of it for now. "And do you want to cook together some time? I do not like making a whole meal for just me, this way we could split the food and still have leftovers."

"Oh, yes of course! Come over whenever you have some free time, and we'll pick out our first recipe to try!"

"Sounds great, Clarissa, I will stop over soon. Well it's getting pretty late, and I should go get some sleep, but this was very nice, Clarissa, thank you."

"You're welcome, Ziva. We should definitely do this again sometime soon, maybe with your friend Tony as well."

Ziva grabbed her leftovers and vegetable tray, wished Clarissa a good night again, and climbed the flight of stairs to her apartment. She would need to talk to Abby for sure tomorrow, and of course Tony, about what happened tonight and how to converse better with people who weren't victims, criminals, or coworkers.

**A/N: Sorry it's really short and thank you for the reviews! **


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